THE PIONEER WOMAN by Ree Drummond

Book reviewing has moved down on my priority list. Intimidation and fear are the main reasons – I feel it somewhat presumptuous and quite frightening to critique a person’s writing and creativity. I’ve also read some heady books lately that I’ve been too small to say anything about (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Love Wins, Middlesex, and A Field Guide to the North American Family).

But another librarian, who will remain nameless, has this nasty habit of writing a review of every book he reads. Sheesh. So, I have self-imposed pressure to keep up with the librarians, I guess.

My book of choice: The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond.

Ree Drummond began a blog in 2006, which has grown into the very-popular-amongst-almost-every-woman-I-know Website: www.ThePioneerWoman.com. The Website seems to have a category for almost everything a domestic woman could ever want or need – cooking, homeschooling, photography, home and garden, entertainment. Full Disclosure: I had never seen the site before I read this book.

Though I was not a fan, I wanted to read Drummond’s book because of the appeal she holds for my gender and because I love reading true stories.

The book chronicles a period of Ree’s life when she was transitioning from California to Chicago and breaking up with a long-term boyfriend. During this move, she temporarily moved back home to Oklahoma with her parents. While hanging out at a local bar, she met a mysterious cowboy.

Time goes on and the cowboy (whom she calls Marlboro Man) woos her and she falls in love. She ditches her move to Chicago and agrees to marry her man. Giving up city life and moving to a ranch deep in the country was a sacrifice that Ree worried about but came to cherish. She learned to eat meat (throwing out her vegetarian lifestyle), stick thermometers into cows’ rectums, and chase cows out of her front yard.

While her courtship with the Marlboro Man progressed, her mom and dad’s marriage crumbled after a lifetime of what Ree thought was happiness and stability. The demise of her parents’ marriage caused her to question the whole institution.

Not much really happens in the book that is all that different from many of our own lives. Families break up. People fall in love and get married. Pregnancy and parenthood often follow a marriage. Not a big deal. But yet it is.

What I appreciate about Ree’s book is that she took a story that wasn’t that unusual or earth-shattering and recorded it in such a way that I wanted to keep reading. A talented writer and storyteller she is. I can see why her blog earned her a huge following. She’s funny and entertaining and self-deprecating enough that I can see my own weaknesses in her and they don’t seem all that bad.

Ree and her husband now have four children, but the book ends when they have just one. It’s a very sweet story and a quick and easy read.

--JJ